Jingle Bells (the chorus)

Background

James Lord Pierpont, an American songwriter and organist, published the song in Boston in 1857 under the title "One Horse Open Sleigh". It was reissued two years later as "Jingle Bells, or The One Horse Open Sleigh", and the shorter name stuck. The words are about a winter sleigh ride and a bit of racing in the snow; they never mention Christmas. Only later did it become one of the most familiar Christmas songs in the English-speaking world.

Both Medford, Massachusetts, and Savannah, Georgia, claim to be where it was written, and the evidence is still argued over. The chorus tune sung today has also drifted a little from the 1857 print.

It has one unusual record. In December 1965 the crew of the Gemini 6 spacecraft played it on a small harmonica and bells they had smuggled aboard, which made it one of the first songs performed in space.

How to practise it

This is the chorus, sixteen bars long. The right hand plays the tune in C position (thumb on middle C, finger 5 on G). The left hand plays one long note per bar: C, F or G in the octave below middle C. A comfortable left-hand set-up is finger 5 on F, finger 4 on G and the thumb on C, so the left hand never has to move either.

Start with the right hand alone. The first two bars ("jingle bells, jingle bells") are only E, so they are a chance to set a steady pulse. The tricky moment is bar 3:

Two things happen at once here. First, the tune leaps from G down to C. Your hand stays still; the leap is between finger 5 and the thumb, so just drop the thumb. Second, the C is a dotted quarter note, which lasts one and a half beats, and the D comes on the "and" of beat 4. Count "3, & 4 &" and play D exactly on that last "&". Clap the rhythm while counting before you play it.

Bars 5 and 6 have a matching dotted rhythm on F, and bar 6 ends with two quick Es. Bars 1 to 6 come back in bars 9 to 14, so they are worth learning well.

Then play the left hand alone, noticing that the F arrives in bars 5 and 13. Put the hands together at 60 beats a minute, placing each left-hand note exactly with the first right-hand note of its bar, then climb through 76 and 88 to the full 100.

Listen for a bouncy tune over left-hand notes held for the whole bar. Keep the repeated Es light, like bells, and let the final C ring.

Dotted rhythms like the one in bar 3 are the focus of the ties, dotted rhythms and upbeats unit.